As told to Nicky Andrews

Photos by Garret N, Jordan Wilkinson & Jonathan 

Haven't read part 1? Check it out here.

In the second part of his story, Leo* shares how God has used all sorts of mission experiences to bring out his leadership and people skills, learning that God is in control, and if we are available, He will lead us!   

Leo loved his three months on Logos Hope, spent in Albania, Montenegro and Cyprus. One day, working in the ship’s kitchen, he could scarcely believe where he was, washing dishes looking out on the Mediterranean. “ Ending up there was fully God!“ he smiles.

Leo particularly enjoyed living with 300 people from over 50 nationalities, making friends with people from the other side of the world – like Japan, South Korea, India and Latin America. He also gained a full experience of the ship, not just being in the kitchen, but going on outreach, and undertaking practical humanitarian activity, like helping on a construction project. He initially slept in a dormitory with nine other guys, then later shared a  cabin with just one other.

Leo feels he benefitted and matured more through going alone to the ship; not being part of a team made him take the initiative, like getting involved in optional outreach programmes. And with two rooms on the ship named in memory of OMers who had been martyred, Leo began to reflect on another side of missions for the first time.

Time of transition

When the ship experience ended in December 2022, Leo found it very hard saying goodbye to his many friends onboard, and wondered if he could cope with adjusting to a whole new set of people when REACH started in February 2023. It was a difficult period for Leo; sudden intense doubts and negative thoughts would surface in his mind, seemingly out of nowhere. Nonetheless, he had a ‘peace’ about going to REACH, and it seemed a logical next step.

Moldova –  different this time

REACH is an intensive cross-cultural discipleship training course for young people, designed to prepare them for missions service anywhere in the world. Arriving in Moldova, Leo soon realised its five months were going to be much more structured and intense than life on the ship had been. “It was my first chance to both really spend time with God, and invest in ‘me’, “ he recalls. He had a mentor and started to work through a few things. Through team life and interactions with staff, he learnt a lot about himself, often the hard way, and grew up some more in the process. “Sometimes I seriously had second thoughts about the whole thing, “ he says. “But I didn’t give up, and discovered God was equally with me in the tough times.”

Leo and his nine fellow participants spent alternate months in Moldova and Romania, putting what they were learning about discipleship and outreach into practice. One outreach in particular was a real eye-opener, because the group went to a country with a Muslim culture, where some believers had been martyred a few years before.

Leo remembers one prayer meeting “when the power of God just came, in such a special way; I realised the believers there really understood about martyrdom in a way we just couldn’t. There was just this sort of unity, which I’d not seen before, that maybe comes with not living in safety?” And he observed how believers, and missionaries, lived ‘under the radar’, reaching out to others through long-term 24/7 friendship, raising questions of faith in the way Jesus did when talking with the woman at the well.

REACH – again?

Towards the end of REACH, the other participants were being invited by OM in their own countries to commit to more service after the course finished in June 2023. One day Leo prayed, “I want an opportunity like that”. That same day, OM UK emailed him, inviting him to become a junior leader on their own upcoming REACH course that September. Leo comments that that was all God’s grace, because he had no real experience for a role like that, although it did feel like a really logical next step. He asked God for a confirmatory dream –

 which a friend received! In the dream, God spoke about how Leo would be looked after in the UK, and that it would all be alright. So Leo accepted that new role - five months supporting a group of other ‘Gen Zers’ as they experienced OM UK’s version of the REACH training, with outreaches in the UK and Europe.

After that programme finished in February 2024, Leo spent the spring and summer helping on the OM UK evangelism adventure for young people, called ‘Race Across Europe’ (RAE). On RAE, participants backpack by train around Europe for 4 or 8 weeks, sharing about Jesus as they travel, and while staying in youth hostels or with local OM teams.

Emerging strengths

The next UK REACH programme was due to start in September 2024, and for this one, Leo and his fellow junior leader Laura* became full leaders. The course directors had recognised that Laura was gifted in coordinating planning and logistics etc, while Leo’s natural ability to come alongside others meant he became the ‘facilitator’, helping more with the ‘people’ side of things. This included responsibility for matching up the participants with their OM UK mentors, monitoring how things were going and being the liaison person if anything ‘needed to be said’ to the participants.

Leo was thrilled that being mentored was a very positive experience for most participants. “ I began to see that ‘people care’ is something I really like, having no two days the same, plus all the random things you do to serve as a leader,” Leo comments, “like taking people to the doctor’s or sorting the heating in their accommodation.” And at times he and Laura had to deal with conflict in the team, or when things didn’t go to plan on outreach abroad, they really had to think on their feet. “We were young ourselves, but by God’s grace we sorted things out, “ says Leo. “What I think is very amazing is that God used me in scenarios which I didn’t know I’d be good at, until I was in them. But God knew I’d be alright.”

Big changes

It is now May 2025, and Leo has just turned 23. After four years of almost continuous service with OM on short-term projects, he is taking some time away, asking God what his next steps should be. But whatever he does in future, Leo says that God has already been changing him greatly. He’s matured from a shy teenager into a young man confident to speak in churches, encouraging people to get involved in missions themselves. He’s seen things come full-circle, like teaching practical evangelism techniques to others, in just the way he himself was taught four years ago. And at the recent UK Teen Street, he was the Head Coach over 40 other coaches.  

Final words from Leo: “All these things I’ve shared about, I could never have imagined any of it four years ago, being that shy kid staring out the college window when COVID hit, who doubted life would take him anywhere much. It’s all been of God.

“I’ve always been praying, being available, then saying ‘yes’ to things that He sends across my path. And I’m not the baby believer I used to be, getting really stressed about having to ‘get it right’. I now know that when I take a step, God will steer me and it’ll be alright. And if I do make a mistake, God is bigger than the mistake. God’s in control, I’m trying to be available, and we’ll see what happens next!”

*names changed

Has Leo’s story of God’s faithful leading stirred your heart to take a step in serving Him? Visit our Short Term Outreaches page – your opportunity could be waiting!